As I head back into college, I think more and more about what education should really be for me. Mostly, I require the document, but why waste my time solely on that? I will make my education mean something beyond the paper.

Thanks, K-Co.

Having moved into a new house with a roommate, a house that vaguely resembles the Dunham’s home, but finished, I am searching for a place to set up an office for myself. The squarish spaces of the rooms do not match my furniture terribly well, so the going is tough.

My roommate informs me of something happening outside that he feels requires my attention. When I leave the house, our farmland yard is covered in tiny blue spheres. In the wind, I hear something say, “If the balls are moved, it will wake the spinet.” Then, through unclear necessity, my roommate moves one of the things. Dumb ass.

Immediately, as though the spheres were a blanket over a nest, a swarm of winged insects burst from beneath them and somehow captured us. We are enslaved by the bugs, who possess a sort of telepathy.

When I awake, I am in a space-age elevator where several different-colored caterpillars spell strange letters on the floor. When we do not respond, we hear in our brains, “We are to assist you. Please take care with your feet.”

My roommate, still a dick, makes a motion to stomp on them, and they scurry into the cracks of the elevator which abruptly stops. He must hear something in his brain that makes him leave, then the elevator resumes, taking me to a different floor. The navy blue caterpillar returns, introduces himself in my mind as Adrian, then takes me to a room much like a classroom.

A projector plays what seems a child’s video game, with frequent Hardee’s commercial breaks. As I am subjected to tests, a woman in the room informs me that we are now slaves. We will be given everything we could ever want and live in blissful paradise, but will occasionally be called upon to massage the carapaces of the cow-sized insects who are the ruling class of sorts.

The other choice of course is death. I choose the former, but am met with baleful looks from my fellow inmates.

Before I encounter the massage, I wake up, but the question remains in my head: Would I suffer occasional mind-bending horror to live in paradise?

These past three weeks, I have been in Eureka, IL — jealous? — faux fighting people with swords and shields. Having attended two similar workshops in the past, with varied degrees of success and pain, I will focus on some of the unique qualities of this one.

Let me say first that I succeeded in the modest task which was my charge and returned with two recommended passes in the weapons tested. A “recommended pass” is essentially an A+ in the parlance of our times. Sorry to channel Maude Lebowski, but as I talk about this, I have her cold detachment toward the subject matter. Perhaps I feel this is more of a report than a blog post, an expunging of data necessary for recording. I will likely become more enthusiastic as the post expands. Stay tuned.

I rode with Amie, who later became my smallsword partner. We were acquaintances before, but a long car ride will bond or break such a connection. Ours, luckily, more fit the former. Jonathan Coulton made fast friends of us.

My good fortune continued after we found the secluded campus. My suite-mate fast became one of my better friends at the workshop and our complementary easy-going natures made the living easy, though it was not yet the proverbial summer time. In fact, JD and I entertained one another quite frequently through the exhausting weeks to come.

Several of his phrases became buzzwords of the workshop, at least for the unintentionally exclusive clique of “bros” that developed. It started with JD and I sharing My New Haircut, a satirical video of Jersey Guidos and their (stereo)typical behavior. This viral meme spread quickly until a great many of us were all speaking in our best/worst guido dialect. Whether this offended our friend, Charlie, who was from New Jersey, remains unknown; he was a classy fellow, and certainly would not have mentioned it unless he felt it was out of hand.

We coined pseudonyms for ourselves. Amie became Spencer “Spence” Pafaglioni, Jule: Tommy Dusak, JD: Billy Mills, Mark: Mikey Inoaguy, Baca: Chet Daniels, and my closeted homosexual guido I lovingly branded Kyle Rosewater.

On one particularly rowdy session of this in the car, Spence’s phone accidentally dialed 911 from her pocket. Unaware of this, Spence received a return call, wondering if she was all right. The operator had heard violent yelling and could get no answer from the caller. Not surprisingly, but to great comic effect, the operator attempted to get Spence to admit to the issue by repeating a seemingly innocent phrase. Poor woman knew not the power of the bros.

“Billy” became the punching bag of the group — mainly due to Jule’s inept crush on him — which gave rise to such repeatable phrases as: “Fuckin’ shit!”, “Blammo!”, “Fuckin’ Judas!” and “You’re cold as ice, Pafaglioni. You’re willing to sacrifice… our love.” Like many of JD’s best moments, they are nothing so special when outside of the context of his delivery. In fact, I so adore the way he described Irving the Socially Awkward Bee to me, that I will henceforth always hear it in his voice.

Furthermore, I owe the man my life. With one mighty swing of his sandal, he destroyed the brain bug that crawled its way through our bathroom toward my room. Its nefarious plan, as he described it, was to crawl into my head through my ear canal and control my brain by pulling the strings inside. I love you, JD. No homo*.

* Another phrase we overused. In time, it was revealed that all of the bros were closet homosexuals, since we all loved each other very deeply. The phrase “Fuckin queeah” was also tossed around a fair amount, whenever someone would express affection. In my mind, I continued to wonder whether we were offending the real life Jersey gay guy in our midst, but if so, he bore it with dignity.

My new friend Amie rapidly became my old friend as these workshops stretch time like Silly Putty. At once you feel like you’ve been there three minutes and three years. Everything is heightened the way things were in college. I imagine for college students the warping must be on a Dali scale.

But Amie is no ordinary college student. I learned why — at least, partially — when I met her mentor H. Russ Brown. I had known our head instructor, DC Wright, for some time but Russ was new to me. Together, they formed an instruction tidal wave, washing away old habits and leaving behind clean sandy beaches on which we built hurricane-proof structures of… torutured metaphor, evidently.

Russ and Amie acted like old friends most of the time, joking and poking one another with pool noodles. In private moments, however, their mutual trust and respect shone brightly. His mentorship had made a strong spirit stronger, and her energy renewed his faith in his teaching. She will make CT before me in time, and long before me in age, and she is one person I will envy only in the best way.

I may be biased, but I believe fight people as a group are the most agreeable people in the theater community, possibly the world. Proudly do I wear my SAFD membership because the members are typically trustworthy and honorable, not just from their training, but within their hearts.

We also drink and flirt. A lot.

Whence this harmless debauchery? Judge us not when I say that it comes from an intrinsic trust. We are constantly pushing our bodies and minds to their limits in attempts to entertain with violence. It is a singular trade and could lead one into hysterics were it not for the support of one’s fellows. Imagine for a moment the mental state of a person who must put themselves in a scene where emotions must be heightened to ultimate visibility, escalated to the precipice where violence becomes the only recourse, then balanced between perfectly tempered technique and reckless emotional abandon. Then add another person (or two) threading their way through the same precarious needle’s eye. It tempts and requires insanity.

Not to lessen in any way the plight of a soldier or a surgeon, but we tread similar stress lines without the mercy of being able to harden ourselves against them. Emotional armor is shed in the pursuit of artful pathos. Our toughness is undeniable. Our embraces and massages become hospices, for who else could sympathize?

At our best, these dramatic terms serve aptly. Like other professions, however, there are poseurs. Paying lip service to these ideals is commonplace, even among the better of us. Some are posturing to prove an insignificant alpha dog toughness, some to show they are not the meek things they really are. They may set down the mask on occasion, but it is never far. The truly tough among us tolerate facade as a crutch. Vulnerability is not weakness in this craft, as they will learn.

That got a little gooey. I imagine even my fight friends are resisting a “Fuckin’ queeah” in my direction.

The first week involved the Unrehearsed Shakespeare workshop, which was an undertaking of Herculean proportion, we thought, but turned out simply exciting and fun, with little to no stress once the performance began. If I do say so myself, I made a fine French Dolphin and Queen. I was given the role by the director who felt I would be fearless in portraying the man’s love affair with his horse.

DC kept the training atmosphere light with games during the day, allowing our bodies to warm up and relax at the same time. Brilliant, if you ask me. Sadly, I think it’s something that is avoided at the national workshops, due to time constraints and a timidity toward being unprofessional. I was unofficially the games captain at night, having brought Rock Band, Last Night on Earth and leading the way in creating rules for a live action zombie game on the last night.

Perhaps in part due to that, the instructors and interns honored me with the Noble Blade award for “embodiment of the true spirit of our art form: sharpness of the mind, strength of the body, and generosity of the heart.” Russ and DC made moving speeches in my favor and invited me to apply for teaching assistant next year. My friend, John, also tugged at my tear glands when he said that I made the workshop for him.

Before you go calling him a fucking queeah, though, you should know that in one take, during a one-day trip away from the workshop, he lit himself on fire so he could be kicked through a plate glass window and fall two stories. He escaped with only a mild twinge in his wrist, due to the actor kicking him in the wrong place and his landding slightly twisted on the bag.

And I made the workshop for him. That was a proud moment for me. I could spend a Lord of the Rings-length time thanking people here, but I won’t risk further word count.

I survived. I took some major steps. I made some forever friends. And I returned triumphant.

Exeunt.